Hari Singh

Hari Singh Indar Mahindar Bahadur (23 September 1895-26 April 1961) was the Maharajah of Kashmir and Jammu from 1925 to 1961, succeeding Pratap Singh of Kashmir. He decided to join India in 1947 rather than join the newly-created Muslim state of Pakistan, despite the fact that many people in Kashmir were not Hindu, causing the First Indo-Pakistani War.

Biography
Hari Singh was born on 23 September 1895 in Amar Mahal Palace, Jammu, in Kashmir, British Raj (present-day India) to a Hindu Dogra Rajput family. In 1925 he succeeded his uncle Pratap Singh of Kashmir as the Maharajah of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu in northern British Raj and he was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet of the United Kingdom from 1944 to 1946 during World War II. He opposed the Indian National Congress because they proposed the creation of a socialist state instead of keeping Singh's title of Maharajah under British rule, but in 1947 he was forced to choose between independence or becoming a part of India or Pakistan after Britain gave independence to their lands in British Raj.

Hari Singh maintained his title by playing off both sides, but Pakistani soldiers invaded Kashmir in 1947 out of fear that they would join India. India came to the support of Singh, whose subjects (mainly Muslim) were opposed to joining predominantly-Hindu India. On 1 January 1949, Pakistani forces were forced to withdraw from the invasion by the United Nations, who negotiated a line that divided Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. In 1952, India consolidated as a nation and the monarchy of Kashmir and Jammu was dissolved. Until his death in 1961, Singh continued his pretenses of being the monarch of Kashmir and Jammu.